CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives market, plans to introduce Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, increasing its suite of cryptocurrency derivatives, it stated in a press launch on Friday. The brand new contracts, pending regulatory overview, will enable merchants to handle SOL worth danger with two contract sizes: 25 SOL and 500 SOL.
“With the launch of our new SOL futures contracts, we’re responding to rising shopper demand for a broader set of regulated merchandise,” stated Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s International Head of Cryptocurrency Merchandise.
The contracts might be cash-settled, utilizing the CME CF Solana-Greenback Reference Charge, which tracks SOL’s worth each day at 4:00 p.m. London time. CME already presents bitcoin and ether futures, which have seen vital progress in buying and selling exercise. The agency reported a median each day quantity of 202,000 contracts this yr, up 73% from 2024.
Trade leaders view the transfer as a step towards larger institutional adoption of crypto. Teddy Fusaro, president of Bitwise Asset Administration, famous that CME’s crypto derivatives have helped pave the best way for regulated monetary merchandise, together with ETFs. Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital added that such merchandise give refined buyers extra instruments to handle danger and publicity.
With Solana gaining traction amongst builders and buyers, the addition of SOL futures highlights the rising demand for regulated crypto buying and selling merchandise. It might additionally pave the best way for SOL exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be authorized by the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC).
“CME’s choice to checklist SOL contracts right this moment considerably will increase the chance that corresponding spot ETF functions could possibly be authorized within the foreseeable future,” stated Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks.
“Whereas a precise timeline for approval is difficult to discern, it’s possible the SEC will need to see a number of months’ price of buying and selling on the CME and be happy that the futures correlate with the spot market earlier than it seems to approve ETF functions for SOL.”
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